Problems with my new PVM.

[Barney]

Just received today my sony pvm 1354q that I bought off ebay. I haven't received my scart to bnc breakout yet so I can't try with rgb (might fix my issue maybe?) but I decided to give it a go with my s-video cable.

Now here's my problem, no matter how I tweak the settings, I can't get the colors right at all, like not even close. I don't have anything to calibrate like colors bars and all that but if I really can't find a solution, I'll try to find some place that repairs tvs in my city. Hopefully you guys can help me and I won't have to do that though. Let me show you a picture.

What I have:

Spoiler

What it should look like (random picture from google but you can see the colors clearly):

Spoiler

As you can see, mario's hat is green on my image and it should be red, yoshi should be a bright green but on my image he's dark blue. Also towards the bottom the image is less blue/purple, dunno what that's about. Don't worry about the interference, my s-video snes cable is cheap and does that on everything, colors are fine on other crts though.

I really hope I didn't buy a broken pvm... I really want to use this but damn, the colors are awful at the moment.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[Barney]

After reading another topic I found yesterday, I'm thinking my colors are all reversed or something and the blue is display green and green displaying blue or red or whatever. When I get my scart to bnc cable I'll test this by first plugging the right colors in the right connector but if this problem persist I'll try switching the colors around and see if that works.

[Ed Oscuro]

Try a composite video source from another device, see if it has the same problem. From your screenshot, those dots all over the picture aren't supposed to be there.

I really don't know how to interpret the colors of that funky game, but it looks similar to a problem I had years ago (which didn't get diagnosed) on a Texas Instruments monitor, where red was dropping out.

See if you can't improve things by adjusting any front panel controls.

Next, this might actually be a good candidate for a factory reset. You'd do that by pressing Enter + Degauss (or something similar) at the same time. Write down all the settings on each page of settings before doing it.

As far as color bars go, if you have access to a DVD burner + player, you can choose from one of many test discs online.

It might just be that this is on its way out, with the red color gun dying. The good news is that the colors don't look rotated like somebody else had, in which case you'd expect that the aperture grille wires aren't in alignment.

[Barney]

Try a composite video source from another device, see if it has the same problem. From your screenshot, those dots all over the picture aren't supposed to be there.

I really don't know how to interpret the colors of that funky game, but it looks similar to a problem I had years ago (which didn't get diagnosed) on a Texas Instruments monitor, where red was dropping out.

See if you can't improve things by adjusting any front panel controls.

Next, this might actually be a good candidate for a factory reset. You'd do that by pressing Enter + Degauss (or something similar) at the same time. Write down all the settings on each page of settings before doing it.

As far as color bars go, if you have access to a DVD burner + player, you can choose from one of many test discs online.

It might just be that this is on its way out, with the red color gun dying. The good news is that the colors don't look rotated like somebody else had, in which case you'd expect that the aperture grille wires aren't in alignment.

How would I go about fixing this problem if it was the red color gun dying?

[Ed Oscuro]

You'd have to have somebody rebuild the tube...the red gun is sealed inside the glass CRT envelope. Practically, that would mean it's unfixable.

But we don't know that yet!

Please follow the steps in the post in order, and post if you discover anything.

[Barney]

Don't have cables required to connect composite to the pvm and I alredy tried playing with allthe color settings both on menus and on the front panel, I'll just wait for my scart to bnc cable and hope that it'll work as intended with those. As for factory resseting, my pvm has the buttons you say but they don't seem to factory reset anything, tried other button combinations and also googling but no luck so far.

[Unseen]

Does the on-screen menu show proper white text? If so, it's not the red gun. To me it looks more like swapped colors, which sometimes may also be caused by damage to the CRT, usually during shipping.

[Barney]

the menu whites and the game whites seem to be actually white, if not white then very very very very very very light gray. Hopefully it's just the colors that are switched around and once I get my scart>bnc, everything will be fixed/fixable. Until then, all I can do is wait. I guess I can try to locate some things in the game that are bright red, I mean, if the colors are switched I should be able to find that wouldn't I?

[Barney]

I think the colors are switched up, so far what I've seen is that reds are green, greens are blue and blues are red but the problem is that in yoshi's island there's aren't many full blue colors to be seen (0,0,255) so many of the blues appear either as like all kinds of shades of pink, purple and red.

With these observations, I think (or hope) that I can cross off the red color gun dying, since obviously my colors really are switched up.

I'll post with some updates later.

[Ed Oscuro]

That unfortunately suggests that the set took a sharp hit and the guns are out of alignment with the aperture grille up front. Take a careful look all around the PVM for signs of damage, especially at the front where the tube sits in the frame, to see if it looks out of alignment. The problem would actually be internal to the tube, but this can suggest what's going on.

This is a PVM, though - I don't know, are aperture grille type displays fixable in this case, or is the problem just as bad as an out-of-alignment shadow mask?

[Barney]

Big update : Got my cables, works perfectly with red in blue, blue in green and green in red. Should I just consider this a victory and not worry about it, or could this switching cables thing cause problems later?

So yeah, as far as the overall colors go, everything's good now.

I still have one issue though, near the bottom of the screen, the colors are slightly off, it's like somebody passed a magnet on the bottom of the screen and it left the colors weird. Is that because it's an old pvm that's been used a lot or is it maybe a problem I could fix in the settings? I think you can see what I'm talking about in the pictures.

[Skips]

It tends to happen when a PVM takes a big hit or its used a fuck ton. You can purchase a degassing wand and see if that clears it (anyone with a CRT should have one anyway). You can also try facing the CRT in another direction, just power it off before doing so and power it back on when its facing a new direction. I've had PVM's in the past where I could not face them East or South and had to face them North or West.

This is the one I use http://frys.com/product/487898?site=sr: ... IN_RSLT_PG . It is more than enough to fix any issues with the PVM and BVM line. If it does not fix it dagaussing will not fix your issue. Just make sure you follow the instructions on the box so you don't start a fire.

[Ed Oscuro]

Or just put the PVM through a number of power cycles and see if the auto-degauss doesn't clear it up on its own.